Cave Dwellers

How would you feel about the prospect of living the rest of your life in a cave? There are a number of things that brought this question to my mind this week:

·         My husband has been sick since October; the only time he leaves the house is to go to another doctor's appointment. The house has windows, of course, but most of them have the blinds pulled shut. He has started to lament that he never leaves 'the cave' any more. He is too sick to do much more than sit in front of the tv most of the day, watching whatever he can find.

·         To keep him company, I sit in the evenings and watch whatever strikes his fancy that evening. Last night, we watched a documentary-type you tube episode about Martian colonists settling into Martian volcano flow tunnels, to protect them from a number of dangers that could happen on the Martian surface.

·         And finally, I recently read an article on the internet about a man in Turkey who was renovating his basement, took down a wall, and found himself at the end of a vast network of tunnels and chambers that had been carved into the rock thousands of years ago. Apparently, this vast underground village was started way back when, and was expanded over many generations. All the entrances were 'hidden' by boulders or vegetation, so you had to know how to get in. And there were stone doors in many of the tunnels that could be rolled shut to keep any invaders from getting in.

Personally, I find caves rather spooky, especially the dark parts. Even in the lit areas, it can be difficult to both watch your head so you don't plow into a section of low ceiling, and your feet, so you don't turn an ankle or lose your balance on the uneven floor. I also have this never-ending dread that the top of the mountain will fall in on me. I don't find them terribly comfortable places to be.

However, if I were a Martian colonist, I think I would prefer living in a cave in order to avoid:

·         Being fried by solar radiation.

·         Being frozen by the surface temperature.

·         Being exploded by lack of air pressure.

·         Being shredded by a dust storm.

·         Being hit by a crashing meteor.

Suddenly, living in a cave seems vastly preferable. Plus, the way the you tube episode showed it, the tunnel habitats would still be a collection of domes and fat, sausage-like tubes connected by a network of smaller tubes to enable people to get from one place to another. Even in the Martian tunnels, our habitats would need to be air-tight. There could be crop fields and parks, and your living quarters would look more like an apartment than a cave. I can imagine a 'native-born' Martian could spend their entire life inside the habitat, and never have to don a space suit to go out into the tunnel. Or to the surface of the planet, for that matter.

It definitely gives me food for thought. In case I ever decide to write a story about a Martian colony. Again. Because I wasn't thinking about building habitats in volcanic tunnels when I wrote my last story about colonizing Mars.

What do you think? Would you be up to living in a cave on Mars?

 

My First Book Festival, Part 3

Saturday. The big day.

My room was cold when I got up. I checked the thermostat. It was set for 74, but the actual temperature was 64. I checked the unit under the window, and it said it was set for heat, to the temperature of 64. I tried to bump it up to 74, but it immediately went back to 64. I didn't have time to mess with it. I went downstairs to get some breakfast. I chose some oatmeal, bacon and orange juice, since I don't drink coffee. The breakfast lounge was humming with people.

When it came time to go to the festival site, I had to scrape frost off all my car windows. Well, actually, I turned on the car, set the defrost to high and scraped the side windows. By the time I got that done, the windshield and rear windows were clear. I wasn't sure we still had an ice scraper in my car, so I had originally had visions of trying to clear my windows with a credit card. Thank goodness I didn't need to do that.

It was a 15-minute drive to the site, and then waiting in line to unload of about the same amount of time. An aide showed up with a cart, and I unloaded my 5 boxes. She went to park the cart in the lobby while I took my car to 'the grassy area' and walked back to the building. It was probably 8:45 or so when I got my books transferred to our table, and the aide came to take the cart away so it could be used again.

The festival opened to the public at 10 am, and I had our table all set up by 9:30, so I pulled out my phone and my square reader and tried to figure out how to use it. I couldn't get it to connect to the church's wifi, no matter how hard I tried. Consequently, every time I opened the square app, it had a bright red banner across the top saying I wasn't connected to the internet. I got up and consulted with a couple other authors to see if they were having problems, but they weren't.

In sheer desperation, I called one of my sons to see if he had any suggestions. And it was sheer desperation, because he doesn't use the square app, so he was making things up as he went along. Eventually, he and his wife were going out for breakfast, so I knew I was on my own with my problem. But something he said made me look in my settings, and my data connection wasn't turned on. I turned it on, and opened my square app... and I no longer had that bright red banner about not being connected to the internet.

I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to figure out how to navigate the square app. It was a lesson in frustration, because it seemed to open to a different page each time I opened it, leaving me with no idea where I was at in the app, and even less of an idea how to get where I wanted to go. Thankfully, I only needed to use it once that entire day. A young man wanted to buy 2 books, so I discounted the price. I got the amount put in the app, but when I ran his card through the reader... it didn't register, and therefore didn't charge him. But I didn't realize that until later.

I now have a new chore on my 'to do' list: Practice with the square app.

It was not a tremendously busy day. They had 150 authors in attendance. They may or may not have had that many people come in and shop. Our table was in the 'science fiction' section, but there were no signs to indicate what section had what kind of books. When customers were scarce, I pulled myself away from our table to go network with other authors. That was actually kind of fun. I always started the conversation the same way; "What type of books do you write?"

And I talked to people who walked by, usually starting with, "What type of book do you like to read?" Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but at least I wasn't just sitting there like a bump on a log. My husband would have been proud of me.

About 4:45, they announced it was time to start packing up what books we had left and leave. I hadn't sold that many books, and I was trying to pack them away in the same boxes they came in, so it was about 5:30 before I found a cart, loaded up my boxes and went to get my car. A helpful person saw me pushing the cart towards my car, and helped me transfer the boxes into the trunk. She was very helpful, and upon hearing where I was from, she got my phone number and sent me the contact information for the 'book festival' being held in Orlando. I thanked her profusely and went back to the hotel.

All I'd had for 'lunch' was some pumpkin seeds and a bottle of pop I had bought from the hotel before I had left that morning. There were supposed to be food trucks at the festival site for most of the day, but they never announced that they had arrived, and I didn't have my husband there to watch the table, so I ate my seeds and was glad to have them. By the time I got back to the hotel, nearly 6 pm, I was hungry, so I went to bar and ordered loaded nachoes and a piece of cheesecake. I should have forgotten about the cheesecake, because there were enough nachoes on that plate to feed 2 of me. But I finished most of them, and the cheesecake, then I went to my room and watched tv to let my nerves settle down.

The whole experience had been so-o-o-o far outside my comfort zone! Even going for supper was uncomfortable, because I was by myself, the bar was busy and noisy. I was pretty desperate for some solitude by the time I reached my room.

The room was still cold. I had neglected to bring a jacket or sweater with me, so I climbed into bed and watched tv.

At one point, my youngest son called me. He had signed up for an online class on IT, one that would 'probably' take him 6 months to finish. He had finished it in 3 weeks, and he wanted to crow a little bit about it. I understood the feeling, I wanted to crow a little too, about how well I had handled the book festival. So we talked a little bit, and then I promised to call him back on Sunday afternoon, after I got home.

So, about 11 (I'm usually up until midnight), I turned off the tv and the lights, pulled the blankets up to my ears to keep the chill air away, and went to sleep.